Withholding Evidence

by Grant, Rachel

  Panic filled her mouth with a metallic taste.

  The world was a blur, her senses jumbled, and not just because her vision was poor beyond five feet. Cars were coming to a screeching halt on the street. Sirens, shouts, fear, and being jerked about by Ling had her in sensory overload.

  She took a deep breath and tried to get her bearings. Squinting, she saw a park before them. Ling dragged her toward a statue in the center. She recognized the statue. Farragut Square.

  Innocent bystanders stood between her and Ling and the statue. She screamed, yelling at them to clear the way. Mothers grabbed their babies and ran. A jogger stopped to help an elderly woman who stood frozen on the path. Ling pulled Trina relentlessly forward.

  They reached the statue. Ling jumped the low fence and pulled her over. The metal bar that topped the fence scraped her spine. He scaled the three steps and pressed his back against a corner stone, holding her in front of him. She was a human shield.

  Ling had made a final play to get the story of what happened in Somalia from her, but a driver who witnessed her struggle must have forced him from the road. Now he was trapped. There was no scenario she could imagine in which he would escape without keeping her as his hostage.

  More emergency vehicles piled up on the roadway as traffic stopped in all directions. The park was cleared in a matter of minutes.

  The gun pressed against her temple as Ling made sounds she assumed were Chinese curses. His hands shook.

  There was no way her government would let him go, even with her as a hostage. Without a miracle, her life was forfeit.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  DOMINICK AND KEITH arrived within moments of the first officers. Keith watched as Trina was dragged to the statue and the man held her before him as cover.

  Dominick’s phone was pressed to his ear as he shouted questions. But this was now an FBI hostage situation, which wasn’t Dominick’s specialty.

  “I’m going to take him out,” Keith said to Dominick, then reached for the rear hatch of the SUV.

  “You’ve got a rifle?”

  He gave a quick nod and grabbed the case from the back. He scanned the area, looking for a good vantage point, where he could see Ling, but Ling wouldn’t know he was in his sights.

  That parked car or that thick tree would do.

  “You can’t, Hatcher—”

  “I can and I will.”

  “An FBI hostage negotiator will be here in minutes.”

  He fixed Dominick with a hard stare. “You and I both know we can’t let Ling escape with Trina. She’ll never stand up to torture. And after he gets what he wants, he’ll kill her anyway. There can’t be a negotiation.”

  “You can’t be the one to take this shot. Not when he’s using Trina as a shield.”

  “I’m the only one who can take this shot, because he’s using Trina as a shield. Do you think I could trust anyone else with her life?” What if someone else fucks up and hits Trina? He’d…he couldn’t even consider it. “I will take him out. No one but me.”

  Dominick must have heard something in his tone, because he gave a quick nod. Or he was simply living up to his reputation as a chess player and read the board as well as Keith had. They were short on time. They couldn’t wait for another sniper, and Keith was here, with a rifle. Ready and willing.

  He set up the M110 by rote. He cleared his mind by focusing on the only details that mattered now. Distance of the shot. Size of the target. An American flag on top of the building behind the statue gave him the wind direction, but it was too high to give him a good idea of wind speed at ground level. The leaves on the tree before him fluttered slightly. Light wind on a humid day.

  He rested the barrel in the V of a tree branch, adjusted the scope, and used Trina’s known height to gauge the distance to the target. He dialed in, and her wide, scared eyes appeared in the crosshairs. He shifted immediately. No.

  Don’t think. Do your job.

  Four square inches of Ling’s face was visible above and behind Trina’s. A small target. But he’d made the same shot from a greater distance many times. This was what he trained for. This was what he did.

  Strands of brown hair flashed in the circle of the sights, then disappeared. Trina’s hair. Her head was that close to his target. Agitated, Ling shifted, pulling Trina with him. Both their heads bobbed in the crosshairs.

  Suddenly, Trina stilled.

  Yes, babe. I’m out here. Don’t move, and I will take him out.

  He placed the center a mil above Ling’s right eye. He took a slow breath, aware of his heartbeat. Habit. Training. This was where it all came together. He pulled the trigger, slowly, mindful to keep the release just as soft.

  Blood splattered the statue behind Trina, and Ling fell to the ground.

  THE MOMENT LING’S arms went slack, Trina ran forward, jumping over the low fence. She didn’t look behind her, didn’t know if he was dead or if his gun was aimed at her back. She didn’t care. She just ran.

  She heard a shout—Keith’s voice—and turned in that direction. She recognized the way he moved even without her glasses. He caught her in his arms and held her against his firm chest. “Babe,” he whispered over and over again.

  She wrapped her arms around his waist and held him tight. She would collapse if she let go. Finally, she found her voice. “What happened to Sean? Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine. He was bound and gagged in your apartment. He came to right as FBI agents smashed through the door. He said you’d both been gassed. A minute after that, reports of a woman kicking out a window and screaming bloody murder on Seventeenth Street came over the police scanner, and that another driver had run him off the road.”

  “It wasn’t Sean’s fault. He searched my apartment before I went into my bedroom. No one was there. The gas—”

  “I know. The same thing would have happened if it had been me who took you there, but I might not have been quick like Sean and hit the panic button before passing out. With the FBI having just been there, we were too confident it was safe.”

  Once again Trina found herself pulled away from Keith to be checked over by a paramedic. The FBI was running tests to determine what gas had been used, but the effects at least appeared to be temporary, probably thanks to the fact that Ling—or whatever his name was—had needed to take her alive.

  They returned to the DOJ, but Trina insisted on riding with Keith. She was done with the being-questioned-separately bullshit.

  They gathered in Curt’s office. Swaddled in a thick, plush blanket, she sat on a couch and leaned on Keith instead of taking a seat in front of Curt’s desk.

  They would probably never know who Ling was exactly. All they knew was he’d been in the US for at least six months, and in that time, he’d thoroughly manipulated two daylight-law activists into spying on their own country for him, managed to get a bomb planted in a computer that was supposed to detonate inside a building on a US Navy base in the nation’s capital, and he would have succeeded in abducting Trina and probably torturing the Somalia story from her if she hadn’t kicked out the window and made a scene before they got on the bridge and left the city.

  Curt left them in his office to confer with the various department heads who had descended on the DOJ after the shooting of a Chinese spy in the heart of DC.

  Alone with Keith, she shifted to his lap. They had no reason to suspect anyone was following her. With Ruby’s and Ling’s deaths, and Vole’s capture, the story of a UN force commander’s assassination by a navy SEAL would go nowhere.

  Keith’s father had surrendered peacefully when he was approached at a grocery store. They’d been told he’d broken down in sobs when he saw the recording of Trina’s abduction and Keith’s shot that saved her. He said he only knew the other RATinformants by their avatars and had no idea they’d been working with a spy. Keith was inclined to believe him, so Trina did as well, but regardless, his dad was facing prosecution as an enemy combatant. The man would never be able to spread stories
about Somalia even if he was still so inclined.

  As for Trina, she would never reveal what she’d learned. She was bound to the same code of silence as Keith’s SEAL team and the highest levels of the US military and government. Some secrets were worth keeping—in this instance knowledge was not power.

  The only weak link was Owen Bishop. Josh had been successful in getting him back into rehab, and Keith and the rest of his SEAL team would watch out for him. They would do everything they could to help him beat the addiction and find his way back to the land of the living. There were no promises of success, but there was hope.

  Trina stroked Keith’s stubbly cheek. “So, now that this is all over, you appear to be homeless.”

  Keith smiled and pressed his nose in her hair. She loved the way he did that. “Not homeless. Tyler’s family rented a place in Annandale. When his mom called to say thanks for the gifts you sent, she offered me a room.”

  She frowned. “Annandale’s almost on top of the Beltway. Pretty far out.”

  His fingertip gently stroked her eyebrow, then circled down to her cheekbone, finally tracing her lips. “Not much farther than Falls Church.”

  “Yes, but Falls Church is at least near a Metro station.”

  Keith smiled. “And this is a problem why?”

  “Well, you see, I don’t have a car. I couldn’t visit you there. And I’d like to visit you. Often.”

  Keith’s grin turned bone-meltingly sexy. “I’d like that. I can think of another problem with Annandale. A seven-year-old in the house means no spontaneous sex in the living room. And I really like spontaneous sex in the living room.”

  Trina felt a little dizzy just remembering the orgasm he’d given her in the living room last night. She liked thinking about that much more than what had happened in Farragut Square. “Well, if you take the job with Raptor, you’ll be working near the White House. And I happen to have an apartment centrally located in the city. Convenient to both the Dupont Circle and U Street Metro stations.”

  “Before you invite me to live with you, shouldn’t you check with your roommate?”

  “I thought you knew Cressida is only temporary—her internship ends on Friday. She heads back to Tallahassee this weekend.”

  “Well, then, this is an intriguing offer you’ve presented. A two-bedroom apartment, centrally located, and you. What’s the rent?” He winked as he asked the question.

  “Three orgasms a day. If you give me four, I’ll even throw in meals.”

  He threw back his head and laughed. “How about we split the rent and food bill and you’ll still get four orgasms.”

  “Promises, promises.”

  He pulled her snug against him and dropped a light kiss on her lips. “Plus I’ll throw in that I’m willing to try to not be such a neat freak if you promise to try to organize a bit.”

  “What makes you think I need to organize?” Yeah, she tended toward clutter, but how did he know that?

  He nipped her bottom lip. “I’ve seen your office. And I’ve yet to see you enter a room without dropping everything you’re carrying right by the door. The laptop at my place. Shopping bags in the hotel. Your clothes last night—although that met with my full approval. You are always welcome to strip for me when you get home.”

  His lips moved to her neck, and she felt lovely chills as he nibbled along her sensitive skin. “If I have to clean up my messes, it sounds like living together is going to be more work than sex.”

  “Probably. But worth it, I think.”

  She nodded as she closed her eyes, envisioning what it would be like to share a home with Keith, hours spent reading, talking, and making love. She grinned at the mental picture and said, “I can’t wait until you organize my library.”

  THANK YOU

  THANK YOU FOR reading Withholding Evidence. I hope you enjoyed it!

  If you’d like to know when my next book is available, you can sign up for my new release e-mail list at www.Rachel-Grant.net. You can also follow me on Twitter at @RachelSGrant or like my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/RachelGrantAuthor. I’m also on Goodreads at www.goodreads.com/RachelGrantAuthor, where you can see what I’m currently reading.

  Reviews help other readers find books. All reviews, whether positive or negative, are appreciated.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I’D LIKE TO thank post-apocalyptic/thriller author and US Navy veteran Steven Konkoly for his willingness to answer even the most mundane questions about the US Navy and naval actions in the Balkans and Somalia over the last two decades. Also, thanks for providing a key piece of information at just the right moment, which helped this story take shape. The information Steven provided on UN Peacekeeping operations was correct; all inaccuracies in my fiction are entirely my fault.

  Thank you to the plot bunnies, Darcy Burke, Elisabeth Naughton, and Joan Swan, who helped me kick-start the writing of this story.

  Thank you to the fabulous authors who critiqued this book: Darcy Burke, Krista Hall, Erica Ridley, and Bria Quinlan. Thank you so much to my wonderful agent, Elizabeth Winick Rubinstein, for your valuable feedback and insight into the story. Huge thanks to my editor, Linda Ingmanson, for helping make this story shine.

  Thanks to the NW Pixie Chicks, for another great retreat and for being the best author support group and friends any author could ask for.

  To my blogmates at KissandThrill.com, thank you for putting up with me. Thanks also to the secret indie Facebook group, who also put up with me.

  Thank you to my children, who mostly put up with me. I love you both with the power of a thousand suns times infinity.

  Thank you to my husband, David Grant, who worked in the underwater archeology branch of Naval History and Heritage Command (back when it was called the Naval Historical Center). Without his insight, this book would be very different. Also I must thank him for the plotting help and for being willing to read and give feedback even though I am not as graceful at taking feedback from him as I am from others. I am so lucky to have you. I love you.

  BOOKS BY RACHEL GRANT

  CONCRETE EVIDENCE (EVIDENCE SERIES #1)

  BODY OF EVIDENCE (EVIDENCE SERIES #2)

  WITHHOLDING EVIDENCE (EVIDENCE SERIES #3)

  GRAVE DANGER

  GRAVE DANGER

  Read on for a sneak peek.

  CHAPTER ONE

  July 2002

  Coho, Washington

  LIBBY MAITLAND’S TRUCK WAS GONE. She stood in the tiny, eight-space parking lot, gripping her keys until they dug into her palm, and wondered where the hell her truck was. The Suburban couldn’t have been towed. The lot was too small and her truck too large. Towing would have caused a commotion. It must have been stolen. A lousy end to a rotten day.

  She couldn’t care less about the truck. Old, beat-up, and rusted, the beast drank fuel like a dehydrated camel, and a tank was more maneuverable. But it was the only vehicle she had, and, even worse, the excavation notes from the archaeological dig were inside. She mentally listed everything she’d loaded in the back when she left the site an hour ago: the stratigraphic drawings, the photologs, the burial notes, and the field catalog. If she didn’t get her truck back, her career as an archaeologist could take another major nosedive.

  She turned around to go back inside the restaurant, planning to call the police, but she must have been their last customer for the night because the door was locked and the shades lowered. The windows vibrated with a loud bass beat she could hear through the glass. The cleaning crew had turned up the stereo. They would never hear her knock.

  She fished around in her purse for her cell phone, and then remembered the phone was in the damn truck. She looked up and down the street. Who would have thought her truck would be stolen in Coho, Washington, a quaint little historic sawmill town where everyone knows everyone? Maybe this was a game the locals played: mess with the city girl who moved here only two weeks ago.

  At ten p.m. on a summer night, the lengthy Pacific Northwest twilight was just starti
ng to lose the battle with darkness, but there was enough light for her to see the police station, only a few blocks down Main Street. She headed in that direction, disconcerted to see the street was empty. Coho, a town at the edge of Discovery Bay on the lush green Olympic Peninsula, did not seem to offer an exciting nightlife.

  The police station was a prime example of 1970s civic architecture: low, long, and brown. She went in the visitor’s entrance and was greeted by a series of windows reminiscent of ticket booths. Behind the first window sat a woman in uniform. Her name badge said Eversall. “May I help you?” she asked with the smile of someone relieved to have something to do.

  “My truck was stolen.”

  The officer looked surprised. “Wow. It’s been a while since we had a GTA in Coho.”

  “GTA?”

  “Grand Theft Auto. Give me the make, model, and plate so I can radio the patrol officers, then I’ll buzz you into the interview room, and an officer will take your full statement.”

  Libby gave her the information and then went through the inner door.

  “First door on the left,” Officer Eversall said.

  The first door to the left was open. She flipped on the lights but thought the room held more promise when dark. The décor was bland industrial with a hint of municipal barren. Everything was clean, functional, made of metal, and at least twenty years old. She pulled out a chair and sat down facing the open door.

  A man in plain clothes entered the room. Tall with broad shoulders, he was masculine in a way that would have flustered her if she were still seventeen. He walked with confidence and purpose that also would have befuddled her at a younger age. Thank goodness she’d said goodbye to seventeen half a lifetime ago.

  “I’m Chief Mark Colby, ma’am. I can take your statement. I’m sorry to hear your vehicle was stolen.” His deep, warm voice held genuine concern.